Chatting with Steve Ashing, Designer of Constantinople

Interview - Constantinople

Q1: Tell us about yourself. What prompted you to make Constantinople?

Steve: As a teenager I played an old SPI game called Empires of the Middle Ages in the 1980s and learned a bit about the Byzantine empire. I understood it was the remnant of the Eastern half of the Roman empire, but little more than that. There are few decent resources on Byzantine history. I learned what I could over the years, but felt that it was a little appreciated part of history in the English-speaking world.

When I had a bit of spare time to design a game, the idea of Constantinople quickly rose to the top of my list of game design topics. I wanted to educate people about Byzantine history and show what an interesting period it was.

My first attempts at design were rubbish: unbalanced, unwieldy, unworkable. It had stacks of armies marching around provinces fighting one another—somewhat akin to the barbarian forces in Time of Crisis, if you’re familiar with that game. I gave up working on Constantinople for a few months.

Then, I stumbled upon the States of Siege system. I quickly realized it was perfect for Constantinople and revisited the design. It worked immediately. Thereafter, it was just a case of tweaking, rebalancing and refining, until I had a game that was sufficiently challenging with a reasonable balance of strategy, tactics and luck.

Q2: What came first? The map or the Event cards?

Steve: I’m not entirely sure. The map was very straightforward to develop, with just 4 spaces on each of 5 tracks. So that was probably complete very early in the process. It would have been fairly easy to create from the earlier designs I had attempted.

My previous design had no cards at all, although it did have dice-driven events. When I print and play a game, I always struggle with making decent cards with consistent backs, so I generally avoided making games with cards. For prototyping though, I simply used opaque backed sleeves and so, since making Constantinople, I’m more comfortable designing games with card decks.

My first iteration of cards divided the history of the Byzantine empire into the various emperors and dynasties. This approach drove very unhistorical play as many dynasties lasted just a few years and others for many decades. Then I moved to equal duration periods of Byzantine history, around say 30 years each. I took the key historical events in each period and used that as the next iteration of event cards.

This represented Byzantine history much better and took only minor modification to make the game interesting and historically plausible. For example, many interesting historical events took place during Justinian’s 38-year long reign - the development of the Code of Laws, the Nika riots, reconquest of Italy to name a few. Rather than define each of these as separate events, some of these achievements are instead reflected by the high action count on these cards (3 and 4).

Q3: How about the Admin board with its six tracks? I noticed you separated them into two different types, with the bottom three called Development tracks. What was guiding your thinking here?

Steve: I was inspired by We Must Tell The Emperor to consider tracks other than the enemy armies. Walls needed some representation and so did Monuments. Religion was also very important. (I see from your own recent session report that Arianism caused a complete collapse early in your playthrough). With these ideas, I developed the Pacification concept.

Those initial three tracks didn’t seem similar to one another and so I added the remaining admin tracks and grouped them in their final shape while thinking up uses for each track. They might be one of the weaker areas of the game, as players will rarely spend Economy or Dynasty during normal play. Armies seem to get some use, but Religion is generally stronger. They do open up more player choices though, which is no bad thing, But, the core of the game remains beating back the opposing armies.

The idea of losing a development during any siege made thematic sense—the citizens wouldn’t appreciate being besieged—and addressed the strategy of just building walls and hoping to hold out against hordes of enemies.

Q4: Were there any challenges or surprises in selecting enemies to populate the tracks? How did selecting two per track come about? Were there any enemies that didn’t make the cut?

Steve: Two per track seemed fairly obvious when considering the long period of history covered by the game. Any more and the game would become unwieldy, chaotic and harder to track what was going on.

The only opponent that I struggled with ended up was the Holy Roman Empire. The Goths were primarily succeeded by the Franks under Charlemagne, but many other factions in the West interacted with and challenged the Byzantines. I could have grouped them all as “Latins” which would have worked for the Fourth Crusade. Yet, there were also Venetians, Genoans, Sicilians and the Pope. All [of them] challenging and causing problems for the Byzantines right up until the fall of Constantinople.

However, the Holy Roman Empire was the biggest player and had some of the most interesting interactions with Constantinople, from Charlemagne’s Frankish nation, through later diplomatic marriage negotiations, rivalry as successor Roman emperors, religious schism and participation in crusades.

Many groups were too small for consideration, but could generally be grouped within those that did make it into the game. I’ve already talked about the HRE, but the Turks, Arabs, Bulgars and Armenians all represent multiple groupings. Additionally, the Persians were conquered by the Arabs and converted to a Muslim state. This isn’t represented at all in the game and they just remain “The Persians” until their replacement by the Turks even though the Persians in the first age are a completely different opponent to those in the second age.

This is definitely one area where some historical compromises were made for the sake of playability. I also find it interesting that some of the Byzantine Emperors had heritages from territories that, in the game, are considered enemies, for example Heraclius was Armenian. Many things that appear clear cut in the game were historical grey areas that were hard to model in the game. The pacification mechanic was how I tried to represent the shifting balance of power and conflict between the Byzantines and their rivals, with mixed success. A more comprehensive game on the Byzantine empire would have many more rivals to choose from to represent in the game.

Q5: How did the Pacification mechanic come to be? It is one of the design’s innovations and creates some very compelling gameplay. The player must carefully manage their resources and position their enemies to capitalize on these opportunities.

Steve: The pacification mechanic was very much inspired by the Armistice rule from Israeli Independence, the original States of Siege game. But rather than have events to deal with a particular opponent, I felt it gave more flexibility to allow pacification of any enemy in the farthest position on its track. Religious conversion/unification was an obvious example of this and happened with the Bulgars and Rus historically. Dynastic pacification through marriage and adoption also happened and brought about long-term peace with rivals. From the initial inspiration it took very little to then tune something that both represented the history and gave the player some interesting decisions.

Q6: Were there any challenges creating the Event cards? How did you settle on 30 Event cards? Did any earlier prototypes have more? Compared to other States of Siege games, the Headlines tend to be more thematic. I assume this is because the scope of each Event card is much broader than other games.

Steve: I don’t recall any change in the number of event cards. I think there were always 30. What didn’t exist at the outset was the ages of the cards. Once I had the successive waves of opposing forces, the force activations went out of balance. The newer forces needed to activate either more or less like their predecessors, depending on their historical levels of aggression. So, I changed from just activating a track to activating a named opposing force.

I aimed to create as thematic a game as possible, within the constraints of the format and game mechanics. I’m pleased you find them thematic and, yes, it helps to have a 30+ year period of history to draw on to find an event topic to build a card around.

Q7: Each of the three Ages has a consistent structure for the 10 Event cards: two Pacification cards, one Tribute card and two “All Slowest” advance cards. Was this deliberate or did it just work out that way?

Steve: Once I settled on the 3 ages, it made sense to have each type of pacification and tribute available in each age. The All Slowest cards were a direct lift from Israeli Independence and, in hindsight, are one of the weaker parts of the game. They incentivise unhistorical positioning of opposing forces to prevent multiple opponents from being activated when these cards are drawn. This is one area I would change if I were to revisit the design in future.

Whenever I had a design decision, I always tried to make it with reference to the actual history. Right up until the end, Byzantine Emperors considered subordinating the Eastern Orthodox Church to Catholicism (in game terms, religiously pacifying the HRE), paid tribute to the Ottoman Turks and offered dynastic marriages (such as to the Mongol Khans), so there was always the possibility for these negotiations and diplomatic initiatives to take place even when the “Empire” was reduced to the city of Constantinople itself.

Q8: It fascinating to hear that. My initial reaction to the All Slowest advance events was similar. However, as I’ve come to play the game repeatedly, my opinion has changed. These events are thematically coherent. The Empire is in an introspective moment: “Nicene Creed”, “Iconoclasm”, “Code of Laws”, “Decadence”, “Venetian Loans”. Handled well, the Empire can finesse the moment to its advantage. But, if they don’t, their enemies can and will take advantage.

This dynamic even works with the “Reconquest of the West” event. The player knows it is coming. With the +1 DRM against the Goths, it could work to be a productive prelude to pacifying them. But, to make this work, the Empire needs to have their ‘ducks in a row’, as it were. Having some barbarians pinned to the frontier is just prudent Imperial administration. For me, it works beautifully in terms of narrative.

Finally, late in the game, an unprepared player can be crushed by these cards with numerous enemies converging on Constantinople simultaneously. Again, this works brilliantly in terms of gameplay narrative and the Imperial mindset. A powerful Empire leverages the moment to its advantage. Conversely, a failing Empire loses control of events and its ability to dictate events.

I have two final questions. How did Ilya get involved? I’ve worked with him years ago and love his ideas. The game looks simply fabulous. As I have noted elsewhere, pictures don’t really do it justice. The game looks fabulous on the table. How did that collaboration work?

Second, when did you realize you have a banger of a game? What happened with your various publishing deals? Sounds like some bad luck on your part.

Steve: Thanks for your views on the All Slowest events. If I ever do revisit the game design, I welcome all feedback, especially where it varies from my own ideas.

I had just finished applying the States of Siege model to Constantinople when the inaugural BGG Wargame Design Contest was launched in 2015. Here’s a link to my entry post.

Retracing the game’s history in that thread I see that I’d already worked on Constantinople for a couple of years by then and was still toying with a variety of different approaches (not all solitaire play). The game was very well received. During the development stage of the contest, Ilya messaged me to ask whether he could contribute art to the game. My attempts were very rudimentary, so I welcomed a professional game artist lending his skills to my little project.

I gave Ilya free rein to do what he wanted with the game art and presentation, only correcting a couple of very minor points to do with game play. Ilya revised his art with each iteration of the design. He did a fantastic job of turning Constantinople into the visual delight it is today. Ilya has been professional, friendly and very quick to turn around any updates—a real pleasure to work with.

Constantinople was, for me, an exercise in seeing whether I could design a decent game. I almost never play solitaire games, but for a first design, a solitaire game makes for easy playtesting and development. I have plenty of other game design ideas bouncing around, but haven’t taken any of them beyond early prototype stage as yet.

After winning the wargame design contest, I approached Victory Point Games with Constantinople. It was accepted and plugged into the development queue, (where you first encountered it) and contracts were signed ahead of publication scheduled for 2018. Just a few months later, Victory Point Games closed down and Constantinople was never published.

I didn’t push Constantinople, but was always open to the possibility of publishing. Next, in 2018, I was approached by Marian of Boardnaut Studios. Marian implemented the iOS and Android versions of Constantinople. He has been a fantastic business partner. Ilya and I continue to receive annual updates from Marian on sales numbers and modest royalty payments.

After that, I was contacted by another publisher in 2020. I signed up a contract and had some exchanges through 2021, but responses became fewer and further between. Eventually, my messages were left unanswered. This publisher has continued to publish other games since then, so I’ve been left in limbo. I don’t really know whether they now hold the rights to Constantinople.

You hear about this sort of thing in the movie industry, with authors signing over book rights, and no movie ever being made. But, I didn’t know it happened in boardgaming. It’s left me disillusioned with the industry and less keen to pursue publication. I never expected to make any money from game design, but I thought it would be nice to leave my mark on the hobby. I don’t have the time and capacity to manage self-publication or a kickstarter campaign, which is why I put my faith in publishers. Given this history, I’m content to give Constantinople away for free to anyone interested enough to make a copy. It’s why I supported Thomas Heaney’s excellent web-based educational version.

I’ll slowly continue to work on my game designs, probably more so once I retire in 5-10 years time. But, I’ll be more cautious in my dealings with publishers and set my expectations very low in future.

In spite of the publication woes, I’m glad I made Constantinople and am generally well pleased with its reception. My original aim for the game was to make a fun game that also educates people on the under-appreciated history of the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of Rome. I think I have achieved that in a small way.